Children

Battle of the Neurodiversities?

I have ADHD. Obviously, I’ve always had ADHD, and in retrospect it explains so much. The reason I know I have ADHD is because my oldest, who is a teenager, was diagnosed with ADHD, and I recognized in them what I went through and how I behave and react and feel and (over)think. I decided to get tested and the result was unsurprising.

My youngest, who is headed towards ten years of age, has been diagnosed with autism, though his is not quite typical and they are still puzzling out the specifics. (I had previously assumed he has ADHD because he regularly copes through hyperactivity.) He’s always had autism, obviously, and again in retrospect it explains so much of his behavior, his responses, his emotions and his thought processes.

Both autism and ADHD are classified as a neurodivergence – also called neurodiversity – meaning that there are connections and processes in these brains that are just a little different from those in the neuronormative brain. With both my children of school-going age, I have seen a notable distinction in how each is perceived, though: ADHD is generally taken a lot less seriously than autism.

What do I mean when I say this?

There is a difference between the way people respond to ADHD vs autism. Autistic people are, for better or worse, considered defined and constricted by their condition, and as such there is a tendency to understand that certain adaptations and adjustments should reasonably be made in order to allow autistic people to function, even thrive. Schools, entertainment venues and many other places make those adjustments and offer options to accommodate people who have autism. They rightly understand that there is only so much that autistic people can process and handle, and that there are certain things they cannot deal with.

I see this in the amount of help my youngest gets in school, and the modifications his teachers make to prevent him from getting overloaded and shutting down, never mind getting his work done. I’m very grateful for this, and I’m so happy that it’s possible. My son needs the adjustments that he’s getting, because without them he would simply not cope.

My oldest, the one with ADHD, is very lucky to be in a school that does its best to make allowances where possible, but the difference with autism as a neurodivergence becomes clear when we see that there are some teachers who believe that, because they take medication – a therapy, not a cure – which makes it possible for them to focus better and maintain concentration for longer – at the expense of an enormous amount of energy, it should be noted – their ADHD should somehow not be a factor. My kid gets high marks, they pay attention in class. See? If they take their pills, the ADHD is gone and they don’t need anything extra; no difference in approach, no attempts to reduce stimuli, no measures, such as additional preparation time for projects or tests to prevent crushing stress. There is no reason for them to be overly sensitive to sharp tones, chaos or loud noises, expectations, stress, because the pills are taking care of all that and so they now need nothing more than the other students do.

For people with ADHD who are not on medication, it often seems like the assumption is that now that they know they have ADHD they can just put a little extra effort into not being so busy or concentrating a little better. I’ve even heard someone say that ADHD is a lot harder on the people dealing with someone with ADHD than it is for the person who has ADHD, because these ADHD folks are so busy; it’s exhausting!

That, to me, is just delightfully and infuriatingly ironic, because that overload that “normal” people experience when interacting with people with ADHD is the overload that we experience all day every day interacting with a world filled with neuronormative people. On a regular person’s busiest day, I can promise that their heads are likely at most half as busy as mine is on a regular day, even when I’m on medication.

The main disconnect is in the idea that ADHD is still seen by too many people as somehow voluntary, willful, a choice. That somehow, we choose to have filters that don’t work well, minds that are constantly going and in directions we have little control over half the time, heightened emotional vulnerability, a need to vent the constant activity in our heads through excessive talking or movement, difficulty with impulse control. All of this wouldn’t be an issue if we just applied ourselves.

Well, let’s get to the science behind that for a minute. ADHD is essentially a dopamine regulation issue. We all produce dopamine, but where a non-ADHD brain has enough extracellular dopamine floating around to direct it to where it is needed, ADHD brains will re-absorb the extracellular dopamine, causing a deficiency which results in inhibited executive function. This is why someone with ADHD has trouble directing focus, maintaining concentration, sitting still, planning, correctly estimating time and duration, etc. These executive skills can be taught, but for someone with ADHD that simply takes more time and it also requires a lot more energy.

The dopamine deficiency also causes our “filters” to work inefficiently, if they work at all. A non-ADHD brain will make a preselection of what is relevant, interesting or necessary to be dealt with or even enter the brain, meaning that there is far less for it to process because there is a manageable amount of information that comes in.

An ADHD brain doesn’t really filter very well, if at all: every bit of information enters, resulting in a quickly overloaded processing center, because not only is everything that is seen, heard or felt there to be processed, there is no clear order or priority in which to do that. In a normal, calm environment that’s already challenging; now imagine a situation in which there are more and stronger stimuli than usual – a PE class, a free homework period, a class project.

Now, knowing this, compare this with the level of understanding and support given to a student with autism.

I think it’s obvious where I’m going with this: while ADHD often seems less constrictive than autism, often looks more like a case of too much energy, and has pharmacotherapeutical options to help reduce its effects, it is a real neuropsychological condition and the people that have it deserve to be taken seriously. Like people with autism, they need accommodations, adaptations, adjustments, understanding and acceptance. There are things they are not able to do the way neuronormative people can – just as there are things they can do that neuronormative people cannot.

We know enough about autism to know that those who are on the spectrum deserve our kindness, our patience and our best efforts to help them learn, grow and succeed. I really hope that we can make ADHD better understood, so that those who have it will be given the same consideration that is extended to people on the autism spectrum.

In the end, what we should all want is for these children to not only manage but thrive, to have confidence and to enjoy themselves. And for that, they also need our kindness, our patience, and our best efforts to help them succeed.

Is It Too Early for Halloween? 👻

We love Halloween! Seriously, in our house Christmas may last a little longer, but there is nothing like the feeling of an approaching Halloween for us. Once October 1st rolls around we are ready to go and we have to hold ourselves down until the 15th (completely arbitrary date, incidentally) to start decorating, which we do fairly low-key for all our love of the holiday. We’ll put up a dark wreath on the front door, witches will fly outside our front window, slightly spooky lanterns suddenly pop up in the living room and sometimes even in the bathroom (what is a bath if not a more pleasant smelling witch’s brew, really…), and our black cat is suddenly not just a pet but also a lovely real-life Halloween decoration.

Our Ichabod: suitably named for Halloween, he is our year-round interactive spooky beast.

And so, as the end of August and the start of September approach, it is time to start planning for our annual Halloween party. (This might be a good time to tell you that I’m not necessarily known for doing things at the appropriate time always, while we’re on the subject. For example: I will happily watch Christmas movies in May – seriously: not a problem for me. At all.)

The party itself is not a massive shindig, if I’m honest. It’s not a full-on come-to-our-haunted-house-in-full-fancy-dress type thing: it’s really more of a chance for the English speaking kids that our kids have befriended over the years to get together, catch up, and do some light Halloween celebrating, Anglo-American style.

I do always look forward to it very much: it’s fun to see them all every year, another year older, some of them having gone off in different directions as they’ve gone on to different schools. The Halloween party is a chance to reconnect for them and us. It’s also quite a challenge to organize so I begin thinking about it already around this time of year with anticipatory glee. Since I’m in the Halloween-planning mood already, and you can never begin too early, for this blog post I thought I’d share some ideas for family-friendly Halloween get-togethers. Here goes.

Halloween Quiz Lots of people love celebrating Halloween, but how many know its origins, or its equivalents around the world with their accompanying traditions? There are dozens of fun factoids you can pour into this quiz. All you really need to do is read up on this holiday, maybe branch out a little into witches, ghouls and superstitions, and before you know it you’ll have a ton of questions to choose from. Of course, there are also a bunch of ready made quizzes available online; I just prefer to make them myself because, well: control freak, nerd, show-off – take your pick!

If there are younger kids at the party, do take care to keep the questions and answers accessible to all – or make some questions that are better answerable for the older kids, and some for the younger ones, then team up older and younger kids to give them even chances. Surprisingly, I found that some of the “younger” questions were actually quite challenging for the older kids as well.

Halloween Mad Libs It’s mad libs, Halloween style! There are plenty of mad libs templates you can find online for this, but if you’re feeling creative, you can come up with your own stories as well.

Halloween Creations There are a bunch of games that will allow kids to be creative and really run with their own ideas. It’s great fun to see what they come up with! Here are some options:

Witch’s Brew: have everyone come up with their own witch’s brew – what’s in it, how would it taste, what would it do, what spell goes with it?

Draw What You Hear: play some Halloween songs or haunting melodies and have the kids draw something that’s described in the song or how it makes them feel. Some good songs for this are Monster Mash by Bobby “Boris” Pickett & The Crypt Keepers, and Purple People Eater by Sheb Wooley, or for more abstract pictures Erutan’s Transylvanian Lullaby, and Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre.

If I Made a Movie: Have them think up a movie title for a Halloween movie they would, and have them explain what the story would be.

Or just play a game of Once Upon a Time… Give a (spooky) story prompt, then hand the tale off to the next person to add their few lines, then to the next person, and so on…

Who Are You? For this game, you ask everyone to answer 6 questions about themselves – questions like: favorite scary monster? favorite Halloween candy? etc – then collect the sheets. Without revealing the names, you read out the answers on each sheet and see if the others can guess whose sheet it is.

Fun food You can dress up a lot of easily made drinks and snacks as something else. Pink lemonade? Unicorn wee. Snack sausages? Severed fingers (just slice a little sliver off the top and tear the other end off, then leak some tomato ketchup out of the torn end). Lasagne: entrails and sinew with a layer of grilled ectoplasm (who knew you could grill that stuff?!) Cola? Witch’s brew: just pour it over into a lightly more ornate bottle and stick on a homemade label. Be sure to list the ingredients, like snail slime, eye of newt, you know – the usual.

If you have the time and you feel so inclined, you could of course also decide on some Halloween themed snacks of your own creation, such as cupcakes decorated with flying bats made out of fondant, monster shaped cookies, or mummified sausages (sausages wrapped in ribbons of puff pastry).

Home-made Halloween and fall themed gingerbread cookies.

One time, I actually made something that looked almost too disgusting to eat: I had carved a nauseated face in a pumpkin, and then put some risotto con fungi in a heap in front of it and some in the pumpkin’s mouth. It took a while before I could get anyone in the house to eat risotto again…

Of course, standard fall treats are always fun: roasting marshmallows over a fire, making smores, serving pumpkin spiced lattes and hot cider. To make them more Halloween-y, you can do these wearing a witch’s hat or a vampire cape, and possibly playing some eerie music in the background.

Gift bags or baskets We put together a little something for the guests to take home afterwards to extend the fun a little longer. I usually make a Halloween crossword, a word search, or a word scramble to put in the bag, with a cute pen or pencil. I’ll add a small bag of candy, or even a homemade decorated cupcake, and a spooky thank you card.

One year, when I was feeling particularly inspired, I even spent quite a bit of time making stuffed Halloween monsters out of old socks and scarves. I placed them together in a big basket with a sign in front of it saying “Adopt a Monster”. (They all got adopted, even though they looked fairly awful and amateurish. I am NOT good at sewing. It’s the thought that counts, I guess.)

Honestly, I could probably keep listing and coming up with Halloween party suggestions, but seeing as how it’s still only August, I think I’ll leave it at this for now. Knowing myself, I’ll be writing a few more blog posts to do with Halloween in one way or another between now and 31 October. So if you love the season like I do, check back for more over the coming few weeks.

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Stick to It

Featured photo by Renáta-Adrienn on Unsplash

Today school starts again for my youngest, and tomorrow the oldest also begins the new academic year. The youngest does not want to go. The oldest is actually kind of looking forward to it.

When I ask the youngest why he doesn’t like school, his answers are both true and hilarious: “It takes all day!” and “You have to work all the time!” (He’s really not going to like adulting.) When I ask the oldest what they like about school, it’s mostly the artistic and creative subjects and extracurriculars, and there are many of those – it’s one of the main reasons we chose this school.

But while my children have opposite feelings about being in school, what they have in common – and in common with us as well – is that the academic year brings both order and chaos for them. So yesterday we decided to try something that is new (well, to be fair, not actually new at all – we have tried this before, but this time FEELS different and therefore new) for us as a family: we made. A. Schedule.

That’s right: the household with three ADHD people and one seriously outnumbered neuronormative guy (who doesn’t really like schedules that much either) came up with a schedule.

Freedom in discipline, we hope.

The main goals for us are to not be driven nuts by either our activities, each other, or ourselves. Of course, for us to find out whether we’ve actually made a good schedule this time we have to do the most challenging thing of all, and where all previous attempts at organizing and structuring our household have failed. We have to … wait for it … *whispers* stick to it.

As I confessed earlier, we have tried to organize and streamline things many, many times before in this house, but for some reason making the plan and then sticking to it has proved unbelievably difficult for many different reason: unexpected events, low energy levels, hyperfocus, no focus, emotional responses to not quite being on schedule resulting in veering even more off schedule (it’s an ADHD thing, I’ve been told). You know: reasons.

But we keep trying. We spent a fair amount of time for this latest attempt making sure that the goals we’ve set ourselves are actually feasible, and that there is room for the unexpected. We’ve also built in repetition, and regularity for the things we want, not just for the things we need.

I think that might be where we’ve gone wrong in the past: we placed the emphasis only on the things that were needed, not on the things that make us feel good, happy, and creative. That’s different this time around – we made this schedule to meet our own needs as well as others’.

There will still be challenges, of course, but we also have one more thing that we didn’t have before and that is a better understanding of at least three out of four brains in our family (the ADHD ones). It means we can take each other and ourselves into account more, and that in turn means both more realistic plans and more reasonable expectations.

The academic year has just started so I have no idea how well or even if this time we’ve found the winning formula, but with everything we’ve learned the past year, and a new approach based on kindness and fulfillment as well as goals and achievements, I feel like this time we have a good chance at success.

Even over scholen

Ik ga nu even vloeken in de kerk.

Het OMT kondigde gisteren aan dat de scholen voorlopig open blijven, en daar word ik heel blij van. Niet omdat de kinderen dan overdag “onder de pannen zijn”, maar omdat tijdens eerdere schoolsluitingen is gebleken hoe hevig de emotionele en psychische gevolgen zijn voor kinderen als ze niet naar school kunnen. Afstandsonderwijs trekt een enorme wissel op leerlingen en docenten, en het gevoel van sociaal isolement is voor kinderen (en natuurlijk niet alleen voor kinderen) funest.

Maar.

Aan de andere kant blijkt uit de besmettingscijfers (in de link naar beneden scrollen voor positieve testen per leeftijdsgroep) dat de meeste besmettingen plaatsvinden in de laagste leeftijdsgroepen. Door dus de scholen open te houden – de plek waar deze leeftijdsgroepen min of meer onbeperkt met elkaar in contact komen en het virus vrijelijk overdragen – gaan we deze golf nauwelijks afremmen.

En hier komt dan mijn onvertogen woord. We moeten de winst afwegen tegen het verlies: scholen niet sluiten = waarschijnlijk een onverminderd aanhouden van hoge besmettingscijfers; scholen sluiten = psychische schade bij kinderen. En dan eens kijken of er niet iets in het midden ligt.

Dus … wat als we ons eens aanpassen aan de realiteit waarin we ons nu bevinden, en eenvoudig besluiten de druk te verlagen op docenten en leerlingen? Dat kunnen we bijvoorbeeld doen door eens te bekijken welke standaarden we aanleggen voor wat betreft de prestaties en doelen in het onderwijs. Die standaarden zijn namelijk gestoeld op wat haalbaar was in een tijd waarin we ongehinderd door een pandemie konden leven en leren, en er dus hogere doelen gesteld konden worden zonder dat er mensen aan kapot gingen. De vraag die wij onszelf nu misschien wel eens kunnen stellen is: hoe realistisch is het om dezelfde prestaties te verwachten in de huidige situatie die voorheen werden verwacht in een SARS-CoV-2-vrije wereld?

Even een uitstapje: mijn moeder groeide op in de Tweede Wereld oorlog, en wij hoorden thuis regelmatig hoe het er toen aan toe ging en wat er daarna bij kwam kijken om alles weer op gang te krijgen. Het onderwijs ondervond in die tijd ook wel degelijk beperkingen, en dus deed men wat kon, maar werden er geen doelen gesteld die niet haalbaar waren. Je móest je wel aanpassen, want de realiteit was onomstotelijk wat hij was.

Natuurlijk: wij krijgen nu geen bommen op ons hoofd, of fascisten en moordenaars aan onze deur (nee, complotmarmot: mensen die je vragen om iets bij te dragen aan de publieke gezondheid zijn geen fascisten en moordenaars), maar wat we wel hebben, is een gezondheidszorg die vanwege de constante en aanzienlijke toestroom van ernstig zieke mensen door toedoen van één bepaald virus op alle fronten vastloopt. Dat betekent dus dat niet alleen COVID-patiënten te lijden zullen hebben hieronder, maar dat álle patiënten te lijden hebben onder het voortduren van deze enorme besmettingsgolf.

En dan hebben we het nog niet eens over de mensen die (blijvende) schade aan onder andere hart en longen, en long COVID overhouden aan een doorgemaakte infectie. De nasleep hiervan gaat nog een behoorlijke klap opleveren, niet alleen aan de maatschappij, maar ook aan ons heilige koetje: de economie.

Maar goed, dit toepassend op onze situatie nu: wij leven in een wereld waar dit virus aanwezig is en blijft, en waar we blijkbaar eerst nog hardere lessen moeten leren voor we begrijpen dat het ongehinderd laten losgaan van dit virus niet leidt tot oplossingen, maar alleen nog maar tot meer problemen. En we zullen realistischer moeten gaan worden over wat we van mensen vragen.

Mijn vraag specifiek voor het onderwijs is dit: hoeveel kwaad kan het als de doelen iets lager worden gesteld? Als je ruimte creëert voor docenten en leerlingen om om te gaan met de situatie waarin we ons nu bevinden zonder op schoolniveau te moeten blijven presteren alsof er niets aan de hand is? Ik ben er niet van overtuigd dat we er slechter van worden als de werkdruk over een schooljaar iets verlaagd wordt, en we iedereen wat meer tijd geven om te leren én te leven op een veilige manier. De druk die er nu ligt op iedereen in het onderwijs, aan de kant van zowel aanbod als vraag, is krankzinnig in het licht van wat er momenteel gaande is.

En waar ik dus eigenlijk voor wil pleiten is dat er een tussenvorm bestaat tussen scholen helemaal dicht en scholen volledig open. Pas de onderwijsdoelen aan naar een haalbaarder niveau, en creëer daarmee ruimte om de scholen in een tussenvorm open te houden, bijvoorbeeld met halve klassen waardoor afstand houden veel beter mogelijk is. Verhoog dan niet de hoeveelheid huiswerk en thuiswerk, maar laat in plaats daarvan gelegenheid bestaan voor leerlingen om sociaal isolement te voorkomen door iets meer vrije tijd waarin kinderen eventueel op afstand of anders buiten of in COVID-veilige ruimten op een veilige manier tijd met elkaar kunnen doorbrengen.

En voordat er nu meteen hard wordt geroepen dat die kinderen dat echt niet veilig gaan doen, moet ik opmerken dat het overgrote deel van de tieners zich wel degelijk bewust is van de gevaren en daar ook naar handelt. Natuurlijk zijn er de rellende tieners, maar die zijn veruit in de minderheid, al halen die natuurlijk het nieuws, en de kinderen die zich wel normaal gedragen en zich aan de basismaatregelen houden niet. Dat is natuurlijk niet spannend, en het adagium is “blood sells”.

Ik denk dat met een tussenoplossing dus een hoop bereikt kan worden – het terugdringen van de besmettingen én het voorkomen van ernstige psychische gevolgen voor kinderen – en dat het gezien de omstandigheden de moeite waard is om eens te kijken of er aanpassingen gemaakt kunnen worden om die doelen te bereiken en de scholen en docenten, én de gezondheidszorg, én de kinderen heel te houden.

En dan ook nog even een ander verzoek: zouden we nu eindelijk, éindelijk eens kunnen investeren in goede ventilatie in scholen? Daar hebben we niet alleen nu wat aan, maar ook in toekomstige epidemieën van door de lucht verspreide ziekten.

Het is maar een idee.